1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plotter for automatically depicting figures, characters etc. on the surface of a sheet. More particularly, it relates to a plotter by which figures, characters etc. including stipulated patterns, such as a border and the logo of a company, are automatically depicted on the surface of a sheet.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been well known a plotter wherein, in the state in which the fore end of a writing utensil grasped by a pen carriage is touched down to the surface of a sheet placed on a recording surface, the pen carriage is moved in X-Y directions relative to the sheet in accordance with movement data transferred from a host computer, thereby to depict a figure, a character or the like on the sheet surface.
With the prior-art plotter, in depicting any of figures, characters etc., which include stipulated patterns such as borders and the logos of companies, on the sheet surface, all of the movement data items for moving the pen carriage in the X-Y directions relative to the sheet are transferred from the host computer to the plotter through a communication circuit or the like on each occasion. Thereafter, the pen carriage is relatively moved in the X-Y directions on the sheet in accordance with the corresponding movement data transferred.
In the above-stated case where all of the movement data items for driving the plotter are transferred from the host computer to the plotter on each occasion of depicting any of figures, characters etc. including stipulated patterns on the sheet surface, a too long time is expended on the transfer of the movement data items. Besides, too much labor is expended in affording all of the plotter driving movement data items from a keyboard or the like to the host computer through an input operation. Further, the start-up time of the plotter, which is required until the plotter begins to depict the figure, the character or the like on the sheet surface since an access to the host computer for transferring the plotter driving movement data items to the plotter, is too long. With the plotter, therefore, the figure, the character or the like cannot be depicted on the sheet surface promptly without much labor.